Reviews News Headlines

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For more than 30 years, author William Boyd has won acclaim for writing complexly plotted page-turners often set in unique historical milieus, from World War One-era East Africa to 1936 Los Angeles. His latest novel, "Waiting for Sunrise," features Lysander Rief, a young British actor seeking treatment …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Shadow of Night," the newest book by Deborah Harkness, shot to the top of Publishers Weekly's bestseller list on Thursday. The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "Shadow of Night" …

(Adds byline, story unchanged) LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Chemistry, Walter White said in the first episode of "Breaking Bad," is the study of change. And with Sunday's start of the show's fifth and final season, everything has changed for "Breaking Bad" except its brilliant mix of character-driven drama, science-inspired …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Gone Girl" retained the top spot on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list on Thursday for the second consecutive week. The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "Gone Girl" by Gillian …

CAIRO (Reuters) - Outsiders traversed the Sahara's expanses in the imagination long before the first European explorers ventured into the desert's uncharted interior. Now war, banditry and an al Qaeda offshoot threaten tourism and could leave a region bigger than Australia off limits again, wiping out income for its nomadic …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - When I was a kid and would fight with one of my five siblings and then go crying to my mother, she would tell me to get over it and make up with them. "She's your sister and she's going to be your sister for the rest of your life, so you had better learn to live with her," Mom always said (or, …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's not that I couldn't believe a ménage-à-trois between a botanist-entrepreneur-philanthropist, a bubble-headed Southern California princess, and a haunted and hard-bitten veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I just don't believe the one that's at the center of Oliver Stone's latest, "Savages. …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Gone Girl" shot to the top of Publishers Weekly's bestseller list on Thursday, bumping "Wicked Business" out of the No. 1 spot. The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "Gone Girl" …

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A television reporter walks out of the newsroom after a spat with her boss, setting out on an impulsive road trip that eventually puts her life back on track. Urvashi Gulia's debut novel "My Way Is the Highway" is in many ways a memoir, with traits for her characters drawn from the author's real-life …

LONDON (Reuters) - The cover of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's first foray into adult fiction features a large black "X" in what appears to be a box on a ballot paper set against a bright yellow and red background, her publishers revealed on Tuesday. "The Casual Vacancy" hits shelves on September 27 and has been described …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Steven Soderbergh's "Magic Mike" brings to mind the old joke about non-dairy creamer - we know what it isn't, but what is it? If you're expecting a sexy and voyeuristic peek into the world of muscular dancers taking off their clothes for roomfuls of rowdy women (i.e., the movie that the ads and …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - In the same way that one can support the troops but hate the war, or love the player but hate the game, one can appreciate actors even while disliking the movie in which they're working their tails off. That would be the case with "People Like Us," a maudlin comic drama about a feckless young …

LONDON (Reuters) - E.L. James' erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey", dubbed "mummy porn" by the British media, has become the country's fastest paperback to reach one million sales, trade figures showed. The story, the first in a trilogy, took just 11 weeks to reach the milestone, 25 weeks faster than the previous record …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Wicked Business" soared to the top of Publishers Weekly's bestseller list on Thursday. The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "Wicked Business" by Janet Evanovich (Bantam $28) - …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Peace Corps volunteer who views his time in Malawi in the 1960s as the highlight of his life goes back when his marriage falters, only to find the southern African country he remembers has unraveled through poverty and AIDS, or perhaps never existed. Largely set in a small isolated village …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Grown-up boys and their childhood toys have been a recurring feature of American comedies lately, from Steve Carrell finally unloading his vintage action figures in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" to Jerry Ferrara's enforced separation from his Voltron collection in "Think Like a Man." Making his big-screen …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - When a character wears thick glasses throughout a movie, there's usually a reason above and beyond scoring 20/20 on an eye test. It's to suggest that the character is meek, an intellectual or is attempting, like Clark Kent, to disguise his true self. In the case of Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke), the …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - When you're stumped over what to order at an Italian restaurant, you can always fall back on the antipasto plate; a little meat, a little cheese, some salad - nothing too fancy or complicated, but it's a satisfying mix of this and that. "To Rome with Love," Woody Allen's 43rd outing as writer-director, …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For Italians of all generations there are few mysteries about Gino Bartali, one of the country's best known and most successful road cyclists. Bartali is a symbol of a different era, when Italy was poorer, more naive but much more confident in its future. But now, a new book, the first in English about …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - There's a great movie about the imminent destruction of the planet and how it affects a group of people and their search for family bonds, sexual thrills and even momentary connections with total strangers. It's called "Last Night," it was directed by Don McKellar in 1998 and you should add it …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Honestly, Abe, they done you wrong. The 16th president, the man who kept the Union together and freed the slaves, deserves better then to be turned into a not especially charismatic action hero in a mundane 3D mash-up movie that's an uneasy mix of history, horror and special effects. "Abraham …

TOKYO (Reuters) - A legless Afghan woman pushing herself in a cart appears outside a remote U.S. military outpost after a desperate, dusty firefight, demanding the body of her brother - one of the attackers - to take home for burial. Her presence sparks fierce debate in "The Watch," a novel by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Things have been tough for female characters in Disney cartoons of late. When "The Princess and the Frog" yielded "disappointing" returns - i.e., it made gobs of cash but not the usual oodles - the studio retitled "Rapunzel" as "Tangled" so as dispel the supposed stink of girl-heroine. ...